The Ins and Outs of Change
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: She looks at the new family picture and smirks. Someone's missing, she thinks, but not for long.


**A/N: Four for four now. I've officially poked at all four Stabler kids. Anyway, SVU's not mine, and there's no real episode in particular, so you don't have to look. **

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What she has on her screen is a moving screensaver.

A camera given to her by her parents for one birthday helped a lot with the photography class she took just to fill her schedule. She didn't think that she'd like it as much as she does, but apparently, she was wrong. There are some days where she can't for the life of her put the camera down. A feeling as if when she does put it down, or away, she's missing out on recording something that could be important later on. The class, she muses, is somewhat of her version of an escape from everything that's going on.

The fun thing about it is catching people off guard.

The one reason why Maureen hasn't put her finger on the touchpad of her laptop is that she knows if she does, the slideshow will be broken, and that isn't what she wants. What she had been doing before she got distracted was working on a paper that's due in two days and is only half-finished. Unlike high school, her parents don't know about it, so if she doesn't get it done, there will be no lecture from them, only from herself. The dorm room is quiet, for once, because her roommate, who's almost always on the phone, is away for the weekend, with her boyfriend. She has time to concentrate, and yet, the silence is more distracting than not.

She hasn't figured out how to pause the slideshow without stopping it.

And so she watches, because she doesn't want to have to dig through all the photo files she's saved on her computer. The funny thing about this is that at first glance, one would think something completely different about the photo than what's actually going on. Of course, if you have knowledge as to what's going on, then the story is somewhat different. She has had the camera since the January after her parents split up, a total of six months in all, and she has somehow managed to get pictures of every member of her family. It isn't that surprising. She spends time with all of them, but it is the fact that none of them noticed the pictures being taken that amuses her.

The screen changes, to a picture of her father.

The funny thing about this one is that he'd been a part of an investigation here at her school, and she'd seen him while she was walking out of, ironically enough, photography class. It had been the last class of the morning, before afternoon classes started at around one. It had been eleven o'clock in the morning, and he hadn't noticed her, at all. What amuses her about him sometimes is that she can get away with taking quite a few pictures of him before he actually notices what she's doing. That had been one of those times. The picture was actually a good one…he'd told her to delete it, because he didn't think so, but she hadn't.

What he doesn't know is that it's an assignment. The picture changes to her mother.

The assignment is easy enough. Take pictures of your family's normal life over the course of the class, and at the end of the class, hand it in. Easier said than done, Maureen thinks. There have been way too many changes. No camera in the world can take pictures that fast, as far as she knows. But maybe she's wrong. As it is, it's not like she has the time to find out just yet. The picture of her mother was one taken at home, after the night her father dropped by, which, according to Kathleen, was only for one reason, no matter what he'd had to say about it. In any case, this one had been taken in the kitchen, on a Saturday morning, when all the kids were home, and none of them had anything to do but sit around.

The picture changes again, this time to Kathleen.

What annoys Maureen about her younger sister now is that at the moment, she's the one stuck in the rebellious stage. Staying out all night, getting busted for a DUI…granted, she isn't exactly perfect herself, but still. The smiling face in the picture is one that doesn't show much of what lies beneath the surface. It is after an impromptu soccer game played in the park near the house, a moment of getting away from it all, though reality would come crashing back down on her as soon as it was over. It is a moment to forget herself and maybe regain her bearings. And like the others, it is a photo shot unnoticed.

The picture changes again, to the twins.

And the humorous thing about this one is that the two of them are rarely ever shot, one without the other. Except for things such as school pictures and other things that they are involved in. But when it's just those off moments, they're usually found in one room or another, on the computer or in the kitchen, sitting at the table. They are the ones who have seemed to be the least affected by all the changes, but maybe that's just because they aren't paying as much attention as the other two are. Sure they know Kathleen's theories on their father coming home, and why exactly he came around that night, but it was Elizabeth who voiced her thoughts and told her to shut up about it, and Dickie who ignored it and rolled his eyes later on, behind Kathleen's back. The picture is of the two of them, working on homework, annoyed by it and by each other, because under the table, they're kicking at each other's feet to see who'll get up and move away first.

The picture changes again, this time to herself.

Maureen is half-tempted to go through her photo files at this point, because she doesn't particularly want to look at herself. The picture is one she took by aiming the camera at herself, and it's off centered and she looks awful because it was three in the morning when she took it on a dare. Stupid thing to do, really, but the difference between then and now was that then, she'd been up working on something to keep her mind off the fact that her parents' divorce seemed inevitable, and now it doesn't, and she's not working on anything but staring. At herself, and the changes, and why it seems so different now than it did then, and what's going to happen now.

It is nearing the end of May, and soon the class will be over, but this isn't finished.

But it will be. And so will everything else, because she's still got time to work with and time to watch and time to look. She finally reaches out and moves her finger across the touchpad, and the last picture pops up as the background on her screen: a family photo that she got a friend to take long before this separation drama and before everything got shot to hell and somehow fixed again. But this one isn't candid, they knew it was being taken. And when she gets another friend to take another photo right before the class ends, the differences between then and now will only be seen by those who know what the six of them have been through over the past almost two years.

Someone's missing, Maureen thinks, amused, as she looks. But not for long.


End file.
